What might have made for a pretty good thriller becomes increasingly marred by painful clichés and a lack of solid direction in FLIGHTPLAN. Jodie Foster is Kyle Pratt, a recently-widowed mother whose daughter goes missing on an international flight. Worse yet, no one can actually remember seeing the little girl (Marlene Lawston) on the plane. Soon the panicked mom is scouring the aircraft, determined to find out where her daughter is and what sort of conspiracy placed her there.
While FLIGHTPLAN tries hard to avoid being just another trouble-in-the-skies thriller, it doesn't quite succeed. Director Robert Schwentke's film gently grabs you early on but starts to lose you with all manner of contrivances. The kicker is the air marshal, Carson, played by a numb-looking Peter Sarsgaard. Toward the end his let-me-explain-how-it-was-all-done dialog sounds like something out of the mouth of a 1950s comic book villain.
Yet FLIGHTPLAN is never painfully bad in an "is this over yet?" kind of way. Schwentke provides decent pacing and makes the most out of his claustrophobic setting. Foster is a suitably perturbed presence as the stressed-out mom. And there is some genuine originality on display. But Schwentke fails to bring all the elements together in a supercharged package. His directorial abilities are definitely a work in progress. Hopefully he will learn from his mistakes in FLIGHTPLAN.
While FLIGHTPLAN tries hard to avoid being just another trouble-in-the-skies thriller, it doesn't quite succeed. Director Robert Schwentke's film gently grabs you early on but starts to lose you with all manner of contrivances. The kicker is the air marshal, Carson, played by a numb-looking Peter Sarsgaard. Toward the end his let-me-explain-how-it-was-all-done dialog sounds like something out of the mouth of a 1950s comic book villain.
Yet FLIGHTPLAN is never painfully bad in an "is this over yet?" kind of way. Schwentke provides decent pacing and makes the most out of his claustrophobic setting. Foster is a suitably perturbed presence as the stressed-out mom. And there is some genuine originality on display. But Schwentke fails to bring all the elements together in a supercharged package. His directorial abilities are definitely a work in progress. Hopefully he will learn from his mistakes in FLIGHTPLAN.